Oscar Wilde, Dominicanized

Just finished The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz a few days ago. Apparently his story collection Drown is very good, too. That was published in the late '90s, though. This one's been a while in the making.

The story takes place over much of the middle and late twentieth century in both the DR and New Jersey. The protagonist is about as nerdy as protagonists get, but the book deals so much with the lives of the people around him that it doesn't get annoying. Actually, the cast in this novel is excellent, each carrying identifiable traits that work to make it enthralling and gripping but still ponderous and really thoughtful, too.

Diaz's prose is excellent, the narrator's voice in this novel one of the most unique I've ever read. There are splatters of Spanish that, even for people whose Spanish is awful, don't get in the way at all, really. Oscar Wao's life really is brief and it really is wondrous. It is tragic and beautiful and the way it all plays out is strange because it is so sad but it really couldn't have ended any other way. If you have time, check this one out. Excellent stuff. I just hope it doesn't take quite 10 years for something else from Diaz to appear. Another excellent writer I'm really happy to have found.

Jesus' Son

Denis Johnson's new novel "Tree of Smoke" just came out last month to rave reviews. I've been meaning to read something of his for a while and since the new book is almost 30 dollars, I opted for "Jesus' Son," a collection of stories that takes its name from a Velvet Underground song called "Heroin."

The collection is good. Really, really good.

For a long time I had no time for short stories. Turns out I was just reading the wrong ones. In the last year I've read and loved collections by Raymond Carver, George Saunders and now Denis Johnson. Since I'm trying to put together a few stories of my own, it's really refreshing to read all this stuff. It's also a bit depressing in that banal way everything is when you realize you have a long way to go before you're any good at it.

Anyway, this collection has a narrator whose only given name is Fuckhead. The stories are insane, drug-addled tales about the narrator and his companions' lives, but there is something really beautiful about the imagery and language in the pieces -- not to mention a captivating look at what redemption means, something I find fascinating and refreshing. His progression isn't romanticized. It is simply chronicled in beautiful, sonorous tones. I really like this book. Since it's 15 years old, this was probably a waste of my time, but if you enjoy honest, visceral writing that does something more than that run of the mill, postgrad student fiction does, pick this up.

Even I'm Surprised

Regardless of how you feel about the man, you have to admit this was an incredibly dickheaded thing to do -- denying an improvement in the health care system because it might help more than just those in abject poverty is stunning, even for Mr. Bush. Unbelievable. For those who might still deny the insane power of lobbyists and special interest groups, a decision like this has to at least cause a wince, a chink in the armor of almost preternatural (and consistently self-maintained) naivety.